Cops

Police departments must use race and sex preferences in hiring as a result of federal court consent decrees and political pressures. To meet these demands, many police departments have lowered, and in some cases eliminated, established standards for personal character and intellectual and physical capacity. Jan Golab writes about this in "How Racial P.C. Corrupted the LAPD" in the May 2005 issue of The American Enterprise. While most of Golab's article chronicles how Los Angeles damaged its police force in its quest for "diversity," where it's had to fire 100 police officers, identical damage has occurred in other cities.

The arrest of former Windsor Police Chief Arlis "Vic" Reynolds turned into the case of the missing mug shot this week, as agencies pointed fingers over who was supposed to have Reynolds' processing paperwork. Ultimately, the Virginia State Police concluded Friday afternoon that they could not release the photos of Reynolds or another former police officer charged with embezzlement. Reynolds was indicted by a grand jury on Monday on felony charges of embezzlement and obtaining money under false pretenses during his time as the chief of the Windsor Police Department.

By David Macaulay, dmacaulay@dailypress.com 247-7838 | December 13, 2009

Just under 50 children from underprivileged backgrounds showed up at Walmart in Newport News on Saturday morning for the annual "Shop with a Cop" event. Police spokesman Lou Thurston said 48 kids were at the store at 12401 Jefferson Ave. for the event that started at 8 a.m. and is sponsored by the Fraternal Order of Police. "It is very positive for the kids and touching to see," Thurston said. He said police officers, shown at right and below with families at the event, had to persuade some of the children to spend $100 they were each allocated on themselves as opposed to family members.

If you see a cop while you're out and about, don't be afraid to stop and say, "hi. " That's the message officers at the Newport News Police Department hope to leave with residents at their monthly "Coffee with a Cop" events at restaurants across the city. "We're here for the community, and we're part of the community," Sgt. Scott Williams said at the department's fourth event at Angelo's Steak and Pancake House Thursday morning. "Anything we can do to open the lines of communication and get the message across," he said.

Paul Stojanovich, creator of the pioneer police reality series "Cops," died March 15 after falling 300 feet from an Oregon cliff into the Pacific Ocean. He was 47. Stojanovich's body hasn't been recovered, Tillamook County Sheriff Todd Anderson said. A Portland, Ore., resident, Stojanovich had spent the night with his fiancee, Kimberly Crowell, in a motor home overlooking his favorite spot -- Treasure Cove, just north of Manzanita, Ore. The next morning, the couple went for a hike.

Famed O.J. Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran has been hired to whack the Lubbock, Texas police department for wrongly arresting two black Hampton University coaches and one spouse Nov. 16. It's cool to have such big-time connections, but mustering Cochran for this case is overkill. No one died or was hurt; no one was even charged. And proving racism led to the arrests will be a stretch, even for Cochran. Reality simply doesn't support the accusation, no matter how badly we want to leap aboard that train.

Smithfield police Officers William R. Chrisman and Mike Milner had just hit the streets on their bicycles last weekend when a handicapped citizen flagged them down in the middle of the Olden Days celebration. The man had been accosted by a stranger who demanded money from him, the victim said. Milner sped away on his bike, searching the crowds for the assailant. He found and arrested him several blocks away. It's the kind of bust that might never have happened if the officers had been in a patrol car, says Smithfield Chief of Police Mark Marshall.

On the mean streets of this capital that sees 500 crimes a day, law enforcement authorities have called in the cowboys. Part of an urban renewal project to clean up dangerous parks and monuments so visitors feel safer, 40 mounted charros now patrol with the century-old garb and weaponry of bygone rural desperadoes. With their huge sombreros, silk cravats and leather-trimmed boleros, the costumed cops on poncho-covered horseback can hardly operate undercover. Rather, this latest crackdown on crime aims for a deterring presence -- placing the fanciful figures so squarely in view at Alameda Park that strollers and tourists have come back to what until recently was a no-go zone.

The 16-year-old boy clad in black leather has had numerous encounters with cops, but none quite like this. He never thought he'd hear a police officer admit that all cops aren't angels. But that's just what Sgt. Wally Driskell of the Norfolk Police Department was telling him. The youth in black leather - with his long hair slicked back, jeans torn at the knee and a crucifix dangling from his ear - and five other teens were brought together with Driskell and three other officers through "street law," an innovative program for juvenile first offenders that is soon coming to the Peninsula.

Three hours into his 12-hour night shift on Sept. 1, York County Sheriff's Deputy John Graca Jr. heard his dispatcher's voice over his patrol car radio. A "distraught female" had called 911 from the 7-Eleven on Route 17 between Fort Eustis Boulevard and the Coleman Bridge. Lt. Barry Holloway just happened to be driving behind Graca at the time. The dispatcher called Holloway on his cellular telephone and told him the woman was Carol Miles of Richmond, who said she needed help getting to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where her son lay bleeding to death after being attacked by a shark in the Sandbridge section of Virginia Beach.

Newport News police are working to strengthen their ties to residents in the community, one cup of joe at a time. Officers from the department's central precinct held their second Coffee With a Cop session Friday afternoon at Danny's Deli on Warwick Boulevard, giving the chance for attendees to spend one-on-one time with officers and voice their concerns about things that are going on in the community. The first Coffee With a Cop session was held July 1 at Warwick Restaurant, also on Warwick Boulevard, involving officers who work the overnight shift and don't often get the chance to meet with people who work or go to school during the day or evening, according to Newport News Police Department spokesman Lou Thurston.

Ron Campbell laughs out loud when he is asked about the production budget for his new TV show "Precinct 757," a cop drama set on the streets of Hampton Roads. "We consider it to be a dust bunny budget," Campbell said. "That's when you look under your furniture, and whatever you find, that's what you roll with. " The show, which debuted last week on Cox Cable Channel 11, is entirely written, produced and acted by residents of various Hampton Roads communities. It airs on Fridays at 8 p.m. and Saturdays at 11 p.m., though this Friday's episode will be broadcast at 7 p.m. to accommodate a baseball game.

NEWPORT NEWS — A former Newport News master police officer was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in jail — all suspended — for exposing himself and performing an "obscene sexual display" to people passing by his home last year. Christopher Roush, 42, was found guilty in January of the 12 misdemeanor charges against him — with the judge throwing out a felony charge that was filed on the basis that one of the passing car's passengers was a 14-year-old girl. In the April 2013 incident, several people testified they saw Roush standing "completely naked" in his doorway on Harpersville Road about 9 a.m. one Saturday morning.

GLOUCESTER — Joshua Parker was having a great morning. The 10-year-old Gloucester boy had scored a cart full of toys during the annual Gloucester Sheriff's Office Shop With A Cop event on Saturday morning at the Gloucester Walmart. His haul included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games and a pillow and other presents thanks to a $75 gift card provided by Shop With A Cop. Then Parker hit the Shop With A Cop lottery. A raffle ticket that had been given to him proved to be a winner and he hustled to back of the toys department to pick out a bike.

By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com and By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com | December 10, 2013

HAMPTON - A former Hampton police officer who was accused of assaulting her mother in June pleaded guilty last month to assault and battery - with a Circuit Court judge withholding judgment in the case for a year. On Nov. 20, Jessica A. Reynolds, 27, of York County, pleaded guilty to assault and battery in an altercation that featured birthday-party cupcakes being thrown while she and her mother were driving down the roadway. Reynolds is no longer a Hampton police officer. She worked as a patrol officer for the Hampton Police Division from November 2010 until Sept.

NEWPORT NEWS - City officials wondered if anyone would show up for the five citizen forums held at the City Center Marriott for the finalists for police chief. They need not have worried. Throughout the afternoon, the crowd ranged from 40 to 70 people, and there were more questions for candidates than time. The public forums, each 45 minutes, were the final stop in a rigorous day of interviews for Kenton Buckner, Michael Ciminelli, Richard Myers, Joseph Moore and Lorenzo Sheppard.

One was raised in King and Queen County, yet became a stripper at home in New York's topless bars and seamy neighborhoods. The other was a Brooklyn girl who found school, work and church in King and Queen. In January, they hit the road for New York, then prowled the city's underbelly for five months until, police say, their odyssey culminated in murder. They are only kids: Channel Johnson is 16, and Chakesa Simpson is 17. They are accused of killing an immigrant cab driver named Carlos Uzhca during a June 1 stickup in Brooklyn.

Friday's question: Should the L.A. beating cops get special treatment in jail? YES: 92 Why should they be punished for doing their job? ... They should be slipped out the back door of the jail and sent home to their families. ... Being in jail is a punishment and they shouldn't be tormented by their fellow inmates because they were cops. ... If they want to keep them alive, they should send them to the same prison where they send the congressmen and politicians who do wrong.

NEWPORT NEWS - Antwain Steward is sitting in jail on two counts of murder in part for lyrics in one of his rap songs. His supporters say the song isn't referencing the two deaths and that he is being targeted by police because of his street fame. "They are trying to take a rap character and make him a real person," said Randolph Pope, Steward's video producer. "Rap is like a movie. It's a musical movie, and the rappers are the actors and the directors. Basically Twain Gotti was just making a musical movie.

NEWPORT NEWS - A Newport News police officer who contends he's been improperly treated by the police department after winning his job back in a 2008 grievance has lost a jury trial against the city. After three days of testimony followed by several hours of deliberations Monday, an eight-member jury in U.S. District Court determined that Officer Cory M. Hall did not prove his case against the city, former Police Chief James Fox and others. "Needless to say I am very pleased," said Stanley Barr Jr., the attorney with Kaufman & Canoles who represented the city.